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"FacebookPinterest\n\nOur first morning in China, we got rushed to the hospital. We were whisked up elevators and hurried down hallways as if we were part of some massive emergency. Eventually, we came to rest at a nurses\u2019 station, where patients received a steady stream of bananas as good-bye gifts. That\u2019s when a nurse hijacked my arm and jerked me straight into gynecology. It said so in Chinese and English above the door. GYNECOLOGY.\n\nWhy were we in a hospital at all? That was but one of a dozen questions I had. And what was up with those bananas?\n\nAnother smiling nurse entered bearing a tuning fork. Not quite twelve hours in-country and I was going to become the poster boy for unspeakable Chinese human-rights malfeasance. Saying yes to this insane-sounding road trip had been my original sin; now came the punishment.\n\n\u201CMy rst gynecological exam,\u201C I said. \u201CAnd I am not psyched about the tuning fork.\u201C\n\nMy bodyguard, who was uent in Mandarin, asserted himself. The smiling nurse, wearing badge 0308, explained that yes, the office sign read GYNECOLOGY, but this would be a hearing test, and then there would be a vision test\u2026and then: bananas.\n\nSo Number 0308 sat me down, struck the tuning fork on a rubber mat (which actually silenced the thing), and held it up to one of my ears from behind. Nothing. Sensing my panic, my bodyguard wriggled into my line of sight and grabbed his right earlobe. I lifted the forenger of my right hand to indicate that I could hear the vibrations, clear as a bell.\n\nThe eye test went the same way, vanquished with solid American teamwork. Soon we had attained the perfect scores reserved for rare superior beings, ourselves.\n\nMr. Yang, our dour, overcaffeinated r, herded us into a van and informed us that we were next being taken to a written test. Was it history, economics, literature? Would there be an essay section? I love geography\u2014would there be a map?\n\nNo, no, Mr. Yang informed us, this was a driving test, for the Fast Car\u2026the one that waited for us right now in front of the St. Regis Hotel in Beijing. \u201CYou may not drive in the People\u2019s Republic of China without official Chinese license,\u201C he said gravely.\n\nInside the DMV, we were each handed a pink study pamphlet. We had ve minutes to prepare, Mr. Yang said, then the test would begin.\n\nThe pamphlet was an eight-panel double-sided foldout with one hundred sample questions, a thicket of arcana, and an answer key in the back. A third of the questions had to do with the meaning of certain traffic signs, some of them familiar, some of them not at all, with possible answers describing this or that odd sign as \u201CChildren\u2019s play world\u201C or \u201CHump-shaped road.\u201C\n\nOne question read:\n\nTRAFFIC POLICEMEN MAY MAKE A DECISION ABOUT FINE AND ISSUE THE ADMINISTRATIVE PUNISHMENT SLIP FOR FINES BLOW  (INCLUSIVE) OR WARNING.\n\nA. RMB 200.00\n\n B. RMB 100.00\n\n C. RMB 50.00\n\nMy personal choice, d.: Whatever \u201Cnes blow\u201C traffic policemen wants. Or this one:\n\nWHAT OBLIGATION DO THE PERSONS INVOLVED IN A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT UNDERTAKE WHEN THE ACCIDENT IS BEING INVESTIGATED?\n\nA. MAKING UP A STORY ABOUT THE ACCIDENT.\n\n B. COMPLAINING OF THE FAULT OF THE OTHER PARTY.\n\n C. MAKING A TRUE STATEMENT OF THE ACCIDENT WITHOUT CONCEALING THE TRUTH.\n\nNow, with c. being blatantly ridiculous, I would have marked b. or a., as they were really both one and the same. A fully democratized, litigious, capitalist society would seize on b./a. as the only answer, and therefore the question would never be asked in the rst place.\n\nToo soon I was summoned to sit before a computer that displayed the questions, and suddenly I was 16 again, back at the Connecticut DMV, sweaty-palmed, throwing guesses. Back then if you failed, you couldn\u2019t take the test again for another month. Here\u2026who knew what the consequences would be? Some time in the hoosegow? Next plane home? I tried to consider traffic rules in an openhearted, honest, and wholly un-American way. Miraculously, when I arrived at the eighteenth question, I had statistically locked it up. There was no big celebration, just the thing I like to do when I achieve victory in public: For the two blank-faced DMV bureaucrats, I gave a little tap to the heart and pointed up to heaven.\n\nMICHAEL PATERNITI is a GQ correspondent.\n\nFor the full article, pick up the March issue of GQ."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/ferrari-612-china-beijing-gobi-desert-michael-paterniti>